Trial of Brazil's alleged 8 January insurrectionists opens in supreme court
Source: The Guardian
Trial of Brazil’s alleged 8 January insurrectionists opens in supreme court
Judge condemns ‘dastardly putschist attack’ on Latin America’s largest democracy as first four Bolsonaro supporters go on trial
Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Wed 13 Sep 2023 18.23 BST
Last modified on Wed 13 Sep 2023 18.39 BST
The hate-filled vandals behind the “dastardly putschist attack” on Latin America’s largest democracy must be brought to justice, a supreme court judge has declared as Brazil held the first trial connected to Brasília’s 8 January insurrection.
Thousands of followers of the ex-president Jair Bolsonaro marauded through Brazil’s capital on 8 January this year in what his leftwing successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, called an attempted coup d’état. Nearly 2,000 militant Bolsonaro supporters were arrested in the days after the presidential palace, supreme court and congress were ransacked by Bolsonarista radicals outraged at his defeat in last October’s election.
On Wednesday the first four of those alleged rioters went on trial in a highly symbolic hearing in the refurbished supreme court building, which was comprehensively trashed during January’s uprising.
The supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes described how rightwing insurrectionists had rampaged through the heart of Brazilian democracy, “showing utter contempt for the republic and imbued with the audacity of ignorance”.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/13/brazil-8-january-insurrectionists-trial-opens
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